What has been said of scenery may be applied also to the use of incidental music.  So soon as such music becomes obtrusive, it distracts the attention from the business of the play:  and it cannot be insisted on too often that in the theatre the play’s the thing.  But a running accompaniment of music, half-heard, half-guessed, that moves to the mood of the play, now swelling to a climax, now softening to a hush, may do much toward keeping the audience in tune with the emotional significance of the action.

A perfect theatrical performance is the rarest of all works of art.  I have seen several perfect statues and perfect pictures; and I have read many perfect poems:  but I have never seen a perfect performance in the theatre.  I doubt if such a performance has ever been given, except, perhaps, in ancient Greece.  But it is easy to imagine what its effect would be.  It would rivet the attention throughout upon the essential purport of the play; it would proceed from the beginning to the end without the slightest distraction; and it would convey its message simply and immediately, like the sky at sunrise or the memorable murmur of the sea.

VI

EMPHASIS IN THE DRAMA

By applying the negative principle of economy of attention, the dramatist may, as we have noticed, prevent his auditors at any moment from diverting their attention to the subsidiary features of the scene; but it is necessary for him also to apply the positive principle of emphasis in order to force them to focus their attention on the one most important detail of the matter in hand.  The principle of emphasis, which is applied in all the arts, is the principle whereby the artist contrives to throw into vivid relief those features of his work which incorporate the essence of the thing he has to say, while at the same time he gathers and groups within a scarcely noticed background those other features which merely contribute in a minor manner to the central purpose of his plan.  This principle is, of course, especially important in the acted drama; and it may therefore be profitable to examine in detail some of the methods which dramatists employ to make their points effectively and bring out the salient features of their plays.

It is obviously easy to emphasise by position.  The last moments in any act are of necessity emphatic because they are the last.  During the intermission, the minds of the spectators will naturally dwell upon the scene that has been presented to them most recently.  If they think back toward the beginning of the act, they must first think through the concluding dialogue.  This lends to curtain-falls a special importance of which our modern dramatists never fail to take advantage.

It is interesting to remember that this simple form of emphasis by position was impossible in the Elizabethan theatre and was quite unknown to Shakespeare.  His plays were produced on a platform without a curtain; his actors had to make an exit at the end of every scene; and usually his plays were acted from beginning to end without any intermission.  It was therefore impossible for him to bring his acts to an emphatic close by a clever curtain-fall.  We have gained this advantage only in recent times because of the improved physical conditions of our theatre.